• 12 Years a Slave’sChiwetel Ejiofor, Michael B. Jordan (Fruitvale Station), and Casey Affleck (Out of the Furnace) are in talks to star in Triple Nine, a crime drama from director John Hillcoat (The Road). Oscar-winners Christoph Waltz (Django Unchained) and Cate Blanchett (Blue Jasmine) have also been circling the long-gestating project, which follows a group of corrupt police officers looking to plan a heist. Affleck would be replacing Charlie Hunnam in the pic. [The Wrap]

• James Franco (This Is The End) will lead up The Fixer, an indie from director Ian Olds about an Afghan journalist who relocates to Northern California and ends up in the seedy underground of the bohemian community after trying to take on the crime beat. Franco will play “an unstable hot-tub craftsman named Lindsay.” [The Wrap]

• Tyson Ritter, best known as the lead singer of The All-American Rejects, has been cast as a young Gregg Allman, and Wyatt Russell (22 Jump Street) will play his brother Duane in a Randall Miller-directed biopic of the prolific musicians. The story will be based on Gregg’s memoir My Cross to Bear. [THR]